Intensive farming risk assessment for your environmental permit

You must follow this guide if you’re applying for a permit or to change (vary) a permit for intensive farming under the Environmental Permitting Regulations.

Read the risk assessment overview first. It explains the other steps to take in risk assessment and whether you need to read this guide.

As part of your risk assessment you must assess the following emissions:

This is to check if they are likely to affect people or parts of the environment that could be harmed by emissions from your farm (called ‘receptors’).

You can request pre-application advice to arrange a pre-application discussion for your intensive farming permit.

In this discussion, the Environment Agency will:

The Environment Agency will also tell you what should be included in the permit, for example:

You’ll need to give information to the Environment Agency to help them:

You must have a completed ammonia screening assessment before:

The Environment Agency will work out the most appropriate ‘emission factors’ based on your livestock type and housing system. You can check the standard ammonia emissions factors they use as a starting point for screening assessments.

If you operate a housing system not listed in the standard ammonia emission factors, you may need to give evidence of a site-specific ammonia emission factor as part of your permit application.

You can adjust these standard emission factors in scenarios where you use: